Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose

by Colleen L. Reece

  Yet when the last congratulations faded, the final bit of food had been packed away, and Reverend and Mrs. Nathaniel Birchfield slipped away by themselves, Laurel told Adam, “Let’s take a walk out of town.” She lifted her white skirts, carefully avoiding the ruts made by wagon wheels. After they reached a little rise that gave a splendid view of the darkening sky, the jutting white mountains, and the village she’d come to love, Laurel leaned against Adam’s strength. The harvest of love she had so long sought and often despaired of winning lay before her. God grant her wisdom and courage to keep it green and growing in all the seasons of their lives.

  Desert Rose

  Chapter 1

  Her auburn braid flying and brown eyes sparkling with determination, Desert Rose Birchfield reached her roan horse Mesquite and swung astride while her best friend and cousin Nate lagged a few steps behind. Five feet seven inches tall and one hundred and twenty-five pounds, in the half-worn jeans she looked like a slim boy.

  “Race you to the point!” Rose took advantage of her lead and touched Mesquite lightly with her boot heels.

  “No fair!” Nate bellowed. He stepped into the stirrup and slid into Piebald’s saddle. “You could give a fellow warning.” He thundered behind the laughing girl. His dark hair tossed and his dark eyes, so like his father Nathaniel’s and his Uncle Adam’s, glared at the lithe figure already a hundred yards ahead of him. With that kind of lead even faithful Piebald had little hope of catching Mesquite before they reached the bald knob overlooking the Double B ranch. The aerial vantage point provided a panoramic view of Wyoming’s breathtaking Wind River Range.

  By the time Nate dismounted, Rose had already flung Mesquite’s reins over his head so he would stand and thrown herself face down on a soft bed of pine needles. She rolled over and patted a fake yawn. “What took you so long?”

  “One of these days…” Nate could never bring himself to list the dire consequences, and Rose just laughed at him.

  “Pooh, you know you can’t get the best of me.”

  Her cousin dropped to the ground beside her, fingered a single pine needle, and tickled her bare arm with it. “I’ve been ahead of you ever since we were born, if you’ll remember.”

  She indignantly sat up and her thick braid with the curl at the end flopped over her shoulder. A little candle of irritation lit her dark brown eyes. “Just because you were born exactly one month ahead of me doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “Dear child,” he said pompously, pulling his mouth down. “Don’t you know the Bible tells you to respect your elders?”

  “As if that meant you,” she scoffed and moved out of his reach. “Why don’t you go back to Concord, Massachew-sets, so we can have some peace again?” But Rose held her breath waiting for his reply. The past year that he had spent living out East with his paternal grandparents and attending school had been miserable, although she wouldn’t tell him so.

  “I’m not going back. Ever.” Nate forgot his teasing and straightened to a crosslegged position. “Grandpa and Grandma Birchfield want me to live with them and study medicine, but I can’t.”

  “Why not? You—you don’t want to be a minister like your father, do you?”

  “And if I do?” He shot a searching glance at the cousin who was more like the sister he never had.

  “Why—” She faltered as she felt her tanned cheeks redden. “You don’t act like a minister. I mean, you’d have to be a lot different from what you are.” She stopped, embarrassed and sorry when a hurt look crept into the dark eyes observing her so carefully. “Nate, are you serious?”

  He didn’t answer.

  In desperation she babbled, “You don’t have to decide now, do you? What does your father say? And Aunt Ivy?”

  “They don’t know anything about it. No one does.” Nate clenched his teeth and moodily stared out over the beautiful valley sheltered by saw-toothed mountains. “You aren’t to say anything, either, Miss Smarty.”

  “As if I would. Have you ever known me to tell anything, especially anything you shared?”

  “No.” His short reply hung in the clear air. After a long silence Nate glanced at her. “As far as making up my mind, don’t forget that we’ll both be eighteen before 1893 is over.” In a fluid movement, he stood and walked to the edge of the promontory. A magnificent eagle soared by above them. They could even distinguish the cattle that dotted the valley floor: Lazy H cattle owned by their friends, the Hardwicks; Double B cattle with the mingled BB brand that showed the twinship of Laurel and Ivy Brown who had married the Birchfield brothers. One section of land between the Lazy H and Double B ranches remained unsettled.

  Rose came to Nate and slipped her arm through his. “I’m sorry I teased you,” she whispered. “If God asks you to preach for Him, I know He will help you do it.” When he didn’t respond she added, “Do you—is—has God called you?” Funny how hard it was to discuss this new possibility. Never before had there been such constraint between them.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t really know yet.” The word yet rang a little bell inside Rose.

  Nate’s stumbling confession opened the floodgates and all his hesitancy vanished. “Sometimes I think it’s just that I see the good Dad does, the way people say that he and your father have changed Antelope for the better in spite of all the trouble the past few years. Other times I know it’s because of what Dad is. If I can be half the man he is, I’ll be a success. Then once in a while when I’m riding alone at night the moonlight and mountains and foothills and trees shout that their Creator is present and that I must serve Him. I’m just not sure how. That’s why I haven’t said anything. This summer I have to make up my mind.”

  Rose felt as if her childhood companion had suddenly gone far away from her. She clutched Nate’s arm. “Then why not enjoy this summer all you can and wait for God to help you know? Eighteen isn’t so old.”

  Nate grinned the crooked grin that melted Rose every time. “That’s what I thought until I went to Concord last year. Then I found out eighteen’s a whole lot older out here than back there.”

  “Really? How?” Rose eagerly snatched at the subject, eager to rid that lost, little-boy look from Nate’s face and the need to look at the future from her mind.

  “Maybe it’s because of all that’s happened since we were born in 1875, or even before. How many times have we heard our folks and Grandpa and Grandma Brown tell how thousands of white people violated the Indian treaties and rushed into the Black Hills after gold was discovered in 1874?” Nate’s face flushed with resentment and a sympathetic throb filled Rose’s heart. Only too well did they know how the Indians held the Black Hills sacred and that the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes had retaliated. Peace in the summer of 1876 had been won at a terrible cost: at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, and others, along with two thousand Sioux warriors, the largest gathering in Western history, wiped out General George Armstrong Custer and his entire unit of over two hundred soldiers.

  “I don’t blame the Indians,” Rose declared. She clenched her shapely hands into fists. “If anyone tried to take our homes away from us or desecrate what we held sacred, I’d fight, too.”

  “So would I,” Nate agreed. “I feel sorry for the Indians, and I’m glad we haven’t had trouble here.”

  “Have you seen Chief Running Deer since you came home?” Rose asked.

  Nate shook his head. “No, but I will. Dad says he and his father Chief Grey Eagle proved themselves to be staunch friends years ago.”

  “My father always goes to take them medicine and never lets anyone know where their little tribe still lives,” Rose put in. “They swore friendship before we were even born when Dad took Running Deer’s appendix out and saved his life.” She sighed. “I wish I could do something big and courageous like that. Not much chance here, though. Nate, I love Antelope, but at times I feel I’ll smother. Nothing ever happens.”

  “You ungrateful wretch!” Nate swung toward her, only half jesti
ng. “What about oil being found in Wyoming in the early 80s? And you’re certainly old enough to remember the winter of 1887!”

  “Who could forget it?” she returned, feeling hot blood seep into her face. Rose tossed her braid and her exasperated grimace showed the tiny overlap of front teeth that lent pixie charm to her heart-shaped face.

  “I’ll never forget it as long as I live,” Nate muttered.

  Neither would Rose. Bitter temperatures and savage blizzards had killed thousands of cattle. Frozen carcasses littered the valley, and Thomas and Sadie Brown had been among the few to survive the ruin and hang on to their ranch. As the only doctor in the area, Rose’s father, Adam, had been literally run off his feet; Uncle Nat had officiated at burials and comforted the sick, an equally demanding job.

  Rose stirred restlessly. “I didn’t mean that kind of thing.”

  “What did you mean?”

  She stared at the tranquil scene below and focused on a tumbleweed idly moving but getting nowhere. “I don’t know. I just feel that if I don’t do something soon I’ll explode like a bad jar of canning.”

  “Too bad you aren’t more like Columbine,” Nate teased.

  “Columbine?” A vision of her brown-haired, brown-eyed coquettish sister shimmered in the heat waves before Rose’s eyes. “That flirt? I heard Mother say she thanked God I took after her since Columbine’s the spitting image of Ivy when she was fifteen.”

  Nate cocked his head to one side and smirked. “Granted Columbine’s the flirtiest fifteen-year-old girl I’ve ever known, but just keep in mind how Aunt Laurel kicked over the family traces and rushed out here after Uncle Adam to get ahead of my mother!”

  Before Rose could catch her breath he continued. “I just bet you wouldn’t have the spunk to do something like that.”

  “Who says so?” Rose planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. Would she? Perhaps, she thought, if I followed someone like Dad.

  “I do.” Nate’s natural lightheartedness and tendency to pester never stayed down long. A glint in his eyes struck fire to his volatile cousin. “Look, Rose Red—”

  “Don’t call me that. My hair is not red, it auburn.” She twitched the single heavy braid around for inspection.

  “I could call you Roan Red. It’s almost the same color as Mesquite.” The quietly grazing horse lifted his head and nickered. Nate rolled on the ground with laughter. “Wonder if he’s flattered?”

  “You are so—so—I’m leaving.” In a flash she had vaulted to the saddle with the barest touch of her toe to stirrup. “Come on, Mesquite.”

  “Hey, I’ll come, too.” Nate sobered quickly and headed toward Piebald who showed signs of restiveness.

  “Don’t bother!” The words floated back over the girl’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad, Rosy.”

  “Rose, Nathaniel Birchfield the Second.” There, that would get him. Nate hated being called his full name. If he insisted on being the bane of her life, he should get used to the thorns she could show.

  Mesquite settled into the comfortable, rocking-chair gait that permitted his rider to dream while he did the work. Over the grassy slopes, still green from the unusual summer rains, the roan horse and auburn-haired girl seemed to move as one. From the back of Piebald, Nate observed how much taller she had grown in the year he spent back East. At five feet ten inches and still growing he could look down on her, but deep inside he knew he also looked up to the beautiful girl. Would he ever find a girl to match her?

  “God willing,” he muttered. “And that she finds someone who will be worthy of her.” He frowned until his black brows met above the dark eyes that could change from laughter to deep thought so quickly. “There’s not a man on the range who is good enough for her,” he told Piebald in a voice too low to carry to the girl ahead. “In fact, I’ve only known one man outside of Dad and Uncle Adam who could handle her with love and the firm hand she’s going to need.” His mouth twitched. “Herein is a matchmaker born, but how?”

  For several days Nate put aside his own weighty considerations and plotted. Over two thousand miles lay between Wyoming and Massachusetts. Besides, if Rose were allowed to go to school back East, what guarantee had anyone that she wouldn’t follow her headstrong ways and fall in love with some rotter? Living in a so-called civilized part of the country didn’t ensure ideals and morality. Nate had found as many scoundrels in his year in Concord as in Antelope. They wore finer clothes and looked down their haughty noses at westerners, but Nate’s keen vision penetrated to their core. He couldn’t take a chance on a bedazzled Rose getting tangled up with a skunk in Harvard clothing!

  Perhaps he should go back with her. Yet not even for Rosy would he endure another year in a strange land. He had studied hard and proved himself, but he had counted the months, weeks, and days until he could come home. The same restless, seeking spirit that had lured his father and uncle to the frontier more than twenty years earlier ran strong in Nate’s veins.

  Did he dare to pray about his scheme? If he prayed and God said no, that would be it. Better to simply set the stage and let God take over at that point, he assured his conscience. He did relent enough to say, “Dear God, You know how much I think of Rose and I do have her best interests at heart. All I want her to do is have the chance to meet him. Then it will be up to You.” No lightning flash or thunderclap came, so Nate quickly added, “Amen,” and rode off to find Rose, determined to wait and watch for the perfect opportunity.

  He almost missed it when it presented itself the next day. He came down the stairs of the Double B to find Columbine and Rose giggling over a magazine they hastily stuffed under a pillow when he entered.

  “What’s this?” Nate pounced and withdrew a copy of Hand and Heart. He disgustedly tossed it aside. “What are you two doing reading this, anyway?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Columbine defended in her haughtiest Southern belle fashion. “Why shouldn’t people advertise for wives and husbands?” She dissolved in laughter again.

  “Some of them are hilarious.” Rose wiped her eyes and snatched the magazine back. “Listen to this. ‘Wanted: Wife to cook, bake, and sew. No ridin’, ropin’, or brandin’.’”

  “That’s not in there!” Nate peered over her shoulder.

  “It sure is. This one’s even better. ‘You kin have yore own stove, you kin have yore own pony. Wyomin’ winters git mighty lonely.’ Here’s another. ‘Young, healthy female wants to keep company with strong, healthy rancher. Object: matrimony.’ Oh dear, do you think anyone ever answers these?”

  “You bet they do.” Columbine suddenly dropped her affected air. “Mrs. Hardwick said her own sister answered an ad in a magazine like this only it was called Heart and Ring, and she married the advertiser and they’ve been happy for over twenty years!” She shivered and the mischief faded from her pretty face. “A girl would be taking an awful chance, though.”

  “She sure would. She might get someone like Nate,” Rose tormented.

  Nate didn’t say a word. An idea had popped full-blown into his fertile brain. “How about a ride, Rose?”

  “I’ll be ready by the time you saddle Mesquite for me,” she told him and ran to change her clothes.

  “May I go, too? Columbine asked.

  “Not this time.” Nate barely saw the disconsolate droop of her lips. “Sam will be out later.” He knew his sixteen-year-old brother adored Columbine and never had been able to understand why they didn’t get along the way he and Rose did.

  “Oh, Sam.” Columbine drifted away, leaving Nate feeling uncomfortable. Someday he would include her but not today, not when he held the means to carry out his plan concerning Rose.

  No matter which direction they rode, Nate and Rose almost always ended up on the point. They never tired of the changing sky, the slight breeze there on most days, and the feeling of solitude.

  Today they mutually turned Mesquite and Piebald toward the flower-strewn slopes and came out on the bluff th
at ended in the bald knob viewpoint. As usual, Mesquite and Piebald grazed with reins hanging loose.

  “Red Rose, Roan Rose, Rosy, what kind of man do you want to marry?”

  Nate’s question burst a moment of absolute silence. Rose turned her astonished gaze toward Nate. “Whatever makes you ask that?”

  “Most people get married when they’re younger than we are,” he reminded her. “We haven’t talked about it for ages, but you used to say you wanted someone to ride straight out of a storybook. Come on. Who’s your hero now?”

  She hesitated so long he looked at her closely and followed the line of her watching eyes to the distant mountain peaks. “Someone strong and gentle like Dad and Uncle Nat.”

  Nate’s heart leaped. He thought of his candidate for Rose’s hand. So far, so good.

  “And?”

  “He has to love God above anything, even me.”

  Nate leaned closer to catch the final two words. “Is that all?”

  Rose abandoned her seriousness. “Of course not. He has to be rich and exciting and handsome and…why are you looking at me like that?” she demanded.

  “I’m just wondering if you have the courage to do something really exciting and new, something you’ve never done before and will never do again.” He laughed until his white teeth gleamed in the sunlight against his tanned, handsome face.

  “I have the courage to do anything you can think up,” she said rashly.

  “Promise? You’re a scaredy cat if you don’t,” he taunted. He saw her hesitate and he pushed his advantage. “I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

  “I will,” she flashed, all imperiousness and determination.